Advent - 1 - Hope

Advent Wreath at Church. 

Advent upon us, together at home we come together to light a candle on the wreath Sister made, have prayer and reflection. I have place the reflection below for you … 

Advent's familiar themes of waiting and hopeful expectation need to be rescued from Western cultural captivity. It would not be a mistake to think society is tricked by chocolate-filled Advent calendars, blissful christmas decorations, pageants that gloss over the very real darkness that makes Christ coming so very necessary, so very loving and very heroic. 

'Waiting' works if you live in a world where you know that a little more patience generally would have benefit. 'Hopeful expectation' has a pleasant sound if life is going reasonably well. 

But how do these admonitions sound - 'wait!' 'be patient' - in a context of violence and despair, of deprivation and gross inequality? What does 'hopeful expectation' sound like, look like, in places where justice has long been delayed, meaning in reality, justice has been denied?

What if people are tied of waiting? What if patience has run out? What if people have no hope?

Is it possible that society has constructed a carefully rendered 'experience' that is beautiful, tasteful and moving while missing or at least masking its intimate, immediate connections to our messy, broken, violent world?

We do the Light a disservice when we underestimate the darkness. Jesus entered a world plagued not only by the darkness of individual pain and sin, but also by the darkness of systemic oppression. Jesus' people, the Hebrews, were a subjugated people living as exiles in their own land; they were silenced, targets of brutality among other things. This sounds very familiar today, It is easy to see why for many, the darkness of long-standing oppression had extinguished any hope for liberation. 

Into this 'worst world' the Light in which we see light was born, liberating the people from darkness. Long ago St Cyril of Jerusalem wrote that almost everything about our Lord Jesus is twofold: He has two births - one from God before the ages, the other from the Virgin at the end of all ages. 

He has two comings - one is hidden and resembles the falling of the dew upon a fleece; the other, the future one on the contrary will be manifest. 

At his first coming, he was wrapped in linens and laid in a manger; at the second light shall be his robe. 

In his first coming he endured the Cross, heedless of its shame; in his second coming he will be in glory surrounded by an army of angels. 

Let us therefore not stop at the first coming but look forward to the second. This week in advent is an invitation is plunge into the deep, dark waters of our worst world, knowing that when we re-surface for air we will encounter the hopeful, hovering Spirit of God. For when we dive into the depths of our worst world, we reach a critical point at which our chocolate and pageants no longer satiate our longing for hope, we are liberated by this realization. Indeed, the light of true hope is found in the midst of darkness. 

How do recent events in Paris, or even the continual war that is creating so many refugees, in all of their heart-breaking complexity; remind us that we are called to something more, inviting us to see that Advent is rooted in Israel's and the early Christians' longing for justice,for reconciliation, for restoration and wholeness. And that longing was not a passive acceptance of the status quo but an active participation in the work of healing and hope.

Hope is not wishful thinking; it is risk and action and the courage to undertake both. It goes beyond individualistic and much more about collectivistic, intentionally spanning the boundaries of self, going beyond to the other, to the shadows, embracing the darkness within and without. 

For us who 'follow' a crucified Christ, it is also vulnerability and a willingness to walk alongside those whose hopes have been crushed. It is about keeping eyes open, our hearts alert to injustice, and then to doing something about it so that hope and history may indeed, finally and at long last, rhyme.